If you see a piano on the street, play it, it's yours. Until October 14, that is. Street Pianos Boston, an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram, made its debut last week during its first annual New England installment. 75 handcrafted, quirky decorated pianos will be placed citywide for piano players, and not-so piano-players to enjoy.

If you see a piano on the street, play it, it's yours. Until October 14, that is.

Street Pianos Boston, an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram, made its debut last week during its first annual New England installment. 75 handcrafted, quirky decorated pianos will be placed citywide for piano players, and not-so piano-players to enjoy.

"Play Me, I'm Yours," aimed at getting the community to interact with one another, all around a piano.

Michael Wilson, 29 of Watertown took reign this year. As the project manager of the event, Wilson supervised and inspired artists as they painted, plastered, cut, pasted, drew or "almost- anythinged their piano."

"What makes these pianos magical is seeing how people interact with them," Wilson said.

A common reaction most artists have noticed is that when people see the piano, they stop and stare.

It's like a change of space," Wilson said. "You walk through the space every day. But when you walk there one day and all of a sudden there’s a brightly painted piano, people do a double take.

Wilson says these pianos draw people together.

"Kids can't resist them," Wilson said. "You’re introducing an old acoustic instrument to a world of electronics."

Wednesday night, one of the first pianos installed near the Boston University Medical Center already had a crowd surrounding it. In the dark within the quad, two students played gentle music together.

"It's just that," Wilson said. "Seeing people act after they get over the first initial fear of: 'Oh my god, there's a random piano. Everything about the weirdness goes away. That fear goes away."